The Thirty-Nine Steps (12 page)

Suddenly he frowned. ‘I call it disgraceful,’ he said, raising his voice. ‘Disgraceful
that an able-bodied man like you should dare to beg. You can get a meal from my kitchen,
but you’ll get no money from me.’

A dog-cart was passing, driven by a young man who raised his whip to salute the fisherman.
When he had gone, he picked up his rod.

‘That’s my house,’ he said, pointing to a white gate a hundred yards on. ‘Wait five
minutes and then go round to the back door.’ And with that he left me.

I did as I was bidden. I found a pretty cottage with a lawn running down to the stream,
and a perfect jungle of guelder-rose and lilac flanking the path. The back door stood
open, and a grave butler was awaiting me.

‘Come this way, Sir,’ he said, and he led me along a passage and up a back staircase
to a pleasant bedroom looking towards the river. There I found a complete outfit laid
out for me—dress clothes with all the fixings, a brown flannel suit, shirts, collars,
ties, shaving things and hair-brushes, even a pair of patent shoes. ‘Sir Walter thought
as how Mr Reggie’s things would fit you, Sir,’ said the butler. ‘He keeps some clothes
’ere, for he comes regular on the week-ends. There’s a bathroom next door, and I’ve
prepared a ’ot bath. Dinner in ’alf an hour, Sir. You’ll ’ear the gong.’

The grave being withdrew, and I sat down in a chintz-covered easy-chair and gaped.
It was like a pantomime, to come suddenly out of beggardom into this orderly comfort.
Obviously Sir Walter believed in me, though why he did I could not guess. I looked
at myself in the mirror and saw a wild, haggard brown fellow, with a fortnight’s ragged
beard, and dust in ears and eyes, collarless, vulgarly shirted, with shapeless old
tweed clothes and boots that had not been cleaned for the better part of a month.
I made a fine tramp and a fair drover; and here I was ushered by a prim butler into
this temple of gracious ease. And the best of it was that they did not even know my
name.

I resolved not to puzzle my head but to take the gifts the gods had provided. I shaved
and bathed luxuriously, and got into the dress clothes and clean crackling shirt,
which fitted me not so badly. By the time I had finished the looking-glass showed
a not unpersonable young man.

Sir Walter awaited me in a dusky dining-room where a little round table was lit with
silver candles. The sight of him—so respectable and established and secure, the embodiment
of law and government and all the conventions—took me aback and made me feel an interloper.
He couldn’t know the truth about me, or he wouldn’t treat me like this. I simply could
not accept his hospitality on false pretences.

‘I’m more obliged to you than I can say, but I’m bound to make things clear,’ I said.
‘I’m an innocent man, but I’m wanted by the police. I’ve got to tell you this, and
I won’t be surprised if you kick me out.’

He smiled. ‘That’s all right. Don’t let that interfere with your appetite. We can
talk about these things after dinner.’ I never ate a meal with greater relish, for
I had had nothing all day but railway sandwiches. Sir Walter did me proud, for we
drank a good champagne and had some uncommon fine port afterwards. It made me almost
hysterical to be sitting there, waited on by a footman and a sleek butler, and remember
that I had been living for three weeks like a brigand, with every man’s hand against
me. I told Sir Walter about tiger-fish in the Zambesi that bite off your fingers if
you give them a chance, and we discussed sport up and down the globe, for he had hunted
a bit in his day.

We went to his study for coffee, a jolly room full of books and trophies and untidiness
and comfort. I made up my mind that if ever I got rid of this business and had a house
of my own, I would create just such a room. Then when the coffee-cups were cleared
away, and we had got our cigars alight, my host swung his long legs over the side
of his chair and bade me get started with my yarn.

‘I’ve obeyed Harry’s instructions,’ he said, ‘and the bribe he offered me was that
you would tell me something to wake me up. I’m ready, Mr Hannay.’

I noticed with a start that he called me by my proper name.

I began at the very beginning. I told of my boredom in London, and the night I had
come back to find Scudder gibbering on my doorstep. I told him all Scudder had told
me about Karolides and the Foreign Office conference, and that made him purse his
lips and grin.

Then I got to the murder, and he grew solemn again. He heard all about the milkman
and my time in Galloway, and my deciphering Scudder’s notes at the inn.

‘You’ve got them here?’ he asked sharply, and drew a long breath when I whipped the
little book from my pocket.

I said nothing of the contents. Then I described my meeting with Sir Harry, and the
speeches at the hall. At that he laughed uproariously.

‘Harry talked dashed nonsense, did he? I quite believe it. He’s as good a chap as
ever breathed, but his idiot of an uncle has stuffed his head with maggots. Go on,
Mr Hannay.’

My day as roadman excited him a bit. He made me describe the two fellows in the car
very closely, and seemed to be raking back in his memory. He grew merry again when
he heard of the fate of that ass Jopley.

But the old man in the moorland house solemnized him. Again I had to describe every
detail of his appearance.

‘Bland and bald-headed and hooded his eyes like a bird … He sounds a sinister wild-fowl!
And you dynamited his hermitage, after he had saved you from the police. Spirited
piece of work, that!’ Presently I reached the end of my wanderings. He got up slowly,
and looked down at me from the hearth-rug.

‘You may dismiss the police from your mind,’ he said. ‘You’re in no danger from the
law of this land.’

‘Great Scot!’ I cried. ‘Have they got the murderer?’

‘No. But for the last fortnight they have dropped you from the list of possibles.’

‘Why?’ I asked in amazement.

‘Principally because I received a letter from Scudder. I knew something of the man,
and he did several jobs for me. He was half crank, half genius, but he was wholly
honest. The trouble about him was his partiality for playing a lone hand. That made
him pretty well useless in any Secret Service—a pity, for he had uncommon gifts. I
think he was the bravest man in the world, for he was always shivering with fright,
and yet nothing would choke him off. I had a letter from him on the 31st of May.’

‘But he had been dead a week by then.’

‘The letter was written and posted on the 23rd. He evidently did not anticipate an
immediate decease. His communications usually took a week to reach me, for they were
sent under cover to Spain and then to Newcastle. He had a mania, you know, for concealing
his tracks.’

‘What did he say?’ I stammered.

‘Nothing. Merely that he was in danger, but had found shelter with a good friend,
and that I would hear from him before the 15th of June. He gave me no address, but
said he was living near Portland Place. I think his object was to clear you if anything
happened. When I got it I went to Scotland Yard, went over the details of the inquest,
and concluded that you were the friend. We made inquiries about you, Mr Hannay, and
found you were respectable. I thought I knew the motives for your disappearance—not
only the police, the other one too—and when I got Harry’s scrawl I guessed at the
rest. I have been expecting you any time this past week.’ You can imagine what a load
this took off my mind. I felt a free man once more, for I was now up against my country’s
enemies only, and not my country’s law.

‘Now let us have the little note-book,’ said Sir Walter.

It took us a good hour to work through it. I explained the cypher, and he was jolly
quick at picking it up. He emended my reading of it on several points, but I had been
fairly correct, on the whole. His face was very grave before he had finished, and
he sat silent for a while.

‘I don’t know what to make of it,’ he said at last. ‘He is right about one thing—what
is going to happen the day after tomorrow. How the devil can it have got known? That
is ugly enough in itself. But all this about war and the Black Stone—it reads like
some wild melodrama. If only I had more confidence in Scudder’s judgement. The trouble
about him was that he was too romantic. He had the artistic temperament, and wanted
a story to be better than God meant it to be. He had a lot of odd biases, too. Jews,
for example, made him see red. Jews and the high finance.

‘The Black Stone,’ he repeated. ‘
Der Schwarzestein
. It’s like a penny novelette. And all this stuff about Karolides. That is the weak
part of the tale, for I happen to know that the virtuous Karolides is likely to outlast
us both. There is no State in Europe that wants him gone. Besides, he has just been
playing up to Berlin and Vienna and giving my Chief some uneasy moments. No! Scudder
has gone off the track there. Frankly, Hannay, I don’t believe that part of his story.
There’s some nasty business afoot, and he found out too much and lost his life over
it. But I am ready to take my oath that it is ordinary spy work. A certain great European
Power makes a hobby of her spy system, and her methods are not too particular. Since
she pays by piecework her blackguards are not likely to stick at a murder or two.
They want our naval dispositions for their collection at the Marineamt; but they will
be pigeon-holed—nothing more.’

Just then the butler entered the room.

‘There’s a trunk-call from London, Sir Walter. It’s Mr ’Eath, and he wants to speak
to you personally.’

My host went off to the telephone.

He returned in five minutes with a whitish face. ‘I apologize to the shade of Scudder,’
he said. ‘Karolides was shot dead this evening at a few minutes after seven.’

I came down to breakfast next morning, after eight hours of blessed dreamless sleep,
to find Sir Walter decoding a telegram in the midst of muffins and marmalade. His
fresh rosiness of yesterday seemed a thought tarnished.

‘I had a busy hour on the telephone after you went to bed,’ he said. ‘I got my Chief
to speak to the First Lord and the Secretary for War, and they are bringing Royer
over a day sooner. This wire clinches it. He will be in London at five. Odd that the
code word for a
Sous-chef d’Etat Major-General
should be “Porker”.’

He directed me to the hot dishes and went on.

‘Not that I think it will do much good. If your friends were clever enough to find
out the first arrangement they are clever enough to discover the change. I would give
my head to know where the leak is. We believed there were only five men in England
who knew about Royer’s visit, and you may be certain there were fewer in France, for
they manage these things better there.’

While I ate he continued to talk, making me to my surprise a present of his full confidence.

‘Can the dispositions not be changed?’ I asked.

‘They could,’ he said. ‘But we want to avoid that if possible. They are the result
of immense thought, and no alteration would be as good. Besides, on one or two points
change is simply impossible. Still, something could be done, I suppose, if it were
absolutely necessary. But you see the difficulty, Hannay. Our enemies are not going
to be such fools as to pick Royer’s pocket or any childish game like that. They know
that would mean a row and put us on our guard. Their aim is to get the details without
any one of us knowing, so that Royer will go back to Paris in the belief that the
whole business is still deadly secret. If they can’t do that they fail, for, once
we suspect, they know that the whole thing must be altered.’

‘Then we must stick by the Frenchman’s side till he is home again,’ I said. ‘If they
thought they could get the information in Paris they would try there. It means that
they have some deep scheme on foot in London which they reckon is going to win out.’

‘Royer dines with my Chief, and then comes to my house where four people will see
him—Whittaker from the Admiralty, myself, Sir Arthur Drew, and General Winstanley.
The First Lord is ill, and has gone to Sheringham. At my house he will get a certain
document from Whittaker, and after that he will be motored to Portsmouth where a destroyer
will take him to Havre. His journey is too important for the ordinary boat-train.
He will never be left unattended for a moment till he is safe on French soil. The
same with Whittaker till he meets Royer. That is the best we can do, and it’s hard
to see how there can be any miscarriage. But I don’t mind admitting that I’m horribly
nervous. This murder of Karolides will play the deuce in the chancelleries of Europe.’

After breakfast he asked me if I could drive a car. ‘Well, you’ll be my chauffeur
today and wear Hudson’s rig. You’re about his size. You have a hand in this business
and we are taking no risks. There are desperate men against us, who will not respect
the country retreat of an overworked official.’

When I first came to London I had bought a car and amused myself with running about
the south of England, so I knew something of the geography. I took Sir Walter to town
by the Bath Road and made good going. It was a soft breathless June morning, with
a promise of sultriness later, but it was delicious enough swinging through the little
towns with their freshly watered streets, and past the summer gardens of the Thames
valley. I landed Sir Walter at his house in Queen Anne’s Gate punctually by half-past
eleven. The butler was coming up by train with the luggage.